“On Muzhiming”: Inaugural Workshop of New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China. Rutgers University, May 15–16, 2015

The New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China series held its inaugural workshop onMay 15–16, 2015, at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. The workshop was organized by Jessey Choo (Rutgers University), Alexei Ditter (Reed College), and LU Yang (Peking University) and funded by the Tang Research Foundation, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, the Office of the Deans of the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for Chinese Studies at Rutgers University. This inaugural workshop session focused on one of the most important and influential new sources in the study of medieval China, muzhiming 墓誌銘—stone slabs interred within a tomb and typically inscribed with a biography, an account of the burial, and a rhymed elegy. Excavated by the thousands in recent decades, muzhiming are a unique cultural form of commemorative epigraphy through which contemporary scholars can explore a diverse range of artistic, literary, religious, and economic practices. The workshop brought together fourteen leading U.S. and international scholars studying medieval China and muzhiming from different disciplinary perspectives: Jessey Choo (Rutgers University), Timothy Davis (Brigham Young University), Alexei Ditter (Reed College), Tineke D’Haeseleer (Princeton University), Paul Kroll (University of Colorado-Boulder), JIA Jinhua (University of Macau and IAS, Princeton), LU Yang (Peking University), LUOXin (Peking University and IAS, Princeton), DavidMcMullen (University of Cambridge), SHI Jie (University of Chicago), SHI Rui (Peking University), Anna Shields (University of Maryland-Baltimore County), YAO Ping (California State University-Los Angeles), and ZHU Yuqi (Peking University). Beginning with work on translations and close readings of specific muzhiming, the participants then moved on to the broader questions and challenges these texts raised. There was also a useful discussion of methodologies and resources for researching a crucial aspect of medieval China with which Western scholarship is only beginning to come to terms. Each day of the workshop began with a keynote speech by one of the two participating Chinese scholars with extensive experience working with medieval muzhiming. These were followed by five presentations divided between morning and afternoon sessions. Each day concluded with a roundtable that summed up and Tang Studies, 33. 129–134, 2015